Is homosexuality a form of autism/wiring?

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[James fails to read the "Do Not Feed the Troll" sign]

You are, of course, free to believe anything that you want to believe. Billions of people believe things that are patently untrue.

The empirical evidence is solidly against you--repeated physiological and psychological studies in peer reviewed journals have demonstrated a variety of empirical, measurable differences between people with different sexual orientations. From the anatomical structure of the hippocampus to sexual response to visual and aural stimuli, gay people are demonstrably different from straight people. (And bisexual people are different from gay people).

Were sexual orientation a question of deliberate choice, then there would be no observable anatomical difference, nor an observable difference in sexual response.

Making no assumptions about your sexual orientation, I presume, nonetheless, that you are attracted to some members of the sex(es) that attract you, and not to others. Do you make a choice to be attracted to some features and not to others? Does a young, straight man decide one day that he is going to be a "breast man" while another chooses to be a "leg man?"

Are you capable of deciding to be attracted to the gender that you are not currently attracted to? If you are straight, can you suddenly decide to be gay?

But by all means, carry on in your beliefs--you are free to hold them, regardless of what the evidence might tell you.

I don't think Autism increases your chances of being gay. I think maybe some Autistics can be bicurious. I'm not gay nor bicurious, but because I get obsessions with people, I've often been mistaken for gay because I've had obsessions over women before, but I don't have the same feelings for women as I do men. I fancy a lot of men, and I have that special feeling for them, but if I'm obsessed with women I don't have any special feeling at all. It's probably just me being jealous if they're confident or pretty and I'm just a stupid unconfident Aspie. It's normal for women to admire eachother. My mum always says that women often check other women out, to see what sort of clothes they're wearing, to see how fat or thin they are, and to see how pretty they are. It's nothing to do with homosexuality. I even hear women in my family or women at work have a conversation about how big other women's boobs or bum is compared to their own.

When I think about bringing a nice man into my bed with me, a luscious thought goes through me, and I almost melt with sexual fantasy. I've even dreamt of penises before, and of me snogging the men I fancy, but I've never had that kind of dream about a women before. Um, yuk!

Oh really? How come I like looking at other quys' bodies then? I can choose not to look, and yet I feel an urge to. How do you choose to have an urge like that?

Maybe I'll believe you if you (I'm assuming you are straight) can choose to be gay for awhile. And I don't just mean going through the motions, I mean legitimately feeling an ATTRACTION for the same sex. And if you find that all too easy then I would suggest that you are bisexual or someone who is gay but is too homophobic to admit it to themselves.

Just prepare to become viewed as an irrelevant bigot in an increasingly accepting world.

Nope, that's a fact. Linky.

The "biology of sexuality" question is a two-edged sword, isn't it?

On the one hand, if there is a "gay gene" then when people taunt "change your deviant behavior, your lifestyle choice angers me!" we can reply "well actually it predetermined by my biology, I can't change who I am, accept me."

But on the other hand, looking for a biological cause hearkens back to the time when homosexuality was treated as a disease or defect; what if you could test your unborn child for "gay" and choose to terminate the pregnancy? Or cut away a little piece of the brain to make the kid "normal?" And what about people who might be genetically "gay" or "straight" but choose the opposite lifestyle; are they "faking it"?

My theory is more along the lines of, most people are born with the capability to eat pork AND pie (for example). We have basic needs for carbohydrates, fats, etc. which any number of foods can satisfy. It is natural and instinctive to take pleasure from eating a wide variety of foods. However as we grow up, we develop unique personalities, we begin to preferentially choose certain foods over other foods, certain foods become taboo because of our religion (no pork! ever!) or psychological aversion (pie will make me fat!).

Likewise it is natural to enjoy expressing & receiving affection, touching one's partner, having an orgasm, etc. These needs could be theoretically be satisfied by partners of different gender, size, shape, race, etc, but as with food, we develop likes & dislikes, we create mature sexual identities for ourselves. Some potential partners disgust us, some excite us. Perhaps the thought of a specific sex act becomes as disgusting to us as broccoli to a child. This is called having a personality, and if we are lucky, then we live in a society and grow up in a family where we are free to choose what feels right as an individual expression of our personalities.

Now, going back to the food example, there are some people who simply can't enjoy a particular food, maybe they are lactose intolerant or allergic to shellfish. Some people have a genetic mutation that makes cilantro taste horrible. So I believe the testimony of anyone who says "I am 100% gay/straight, never ever even had the slightest fantasy or temptation." I'm not going to be a jerk and argue, "nuh-uh, you are secretly bisexual!!" that's not what I'm saying at all. But I do think based on my informal observations that this percentage is small, maybe 10-20% on the gay end and 10-20% on the straight end. Certainly among my peer group I would estimate that more than 50% have had an experience or fantasy that runs opposite to their accepted sexual orientation.

100% of all the homosexual people I know personally are non-autistic. Probably 100% or close to it of all the autistic people I know in person are not homosexual. They are two characterisitics and, IMO, not linked at all. You can be either, both, or neither.

All the so called evidence by quacks are just their views/opinions. I truly believe homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and I am not a religious fundamentalist.

I am proof that sexuality can change. I was a homosexual, briefly a bisexual and now I am a homosexual.

I freely chose to be a homosexual, then bisexual and now a homosexual again.
I freely chose the music i listen to, the movies/tv i watch, the clothes i wear and the food i eat, etc.

My sexuality just like every thing else is a ,lifestyle choice made by me of my own free will. No one had a gun held to my heading forcing me to make a decision. I made the decision of my own free will.

We all have choices in this life to make of our own free will.

Last edited by Dark_Lord_2008 on 12 Oct 2011, 10:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

people cannot be born gay, and I personally do not think it is a form of autism

Last edited by Hyram_Inesh on 12 Oct 2011, 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One more time...

There is no empirical evidence to support the claim that there is a causal connection between Autistic Spectrum Disorders and homosexuality!! !

Got it now?

Its not an opinion, its a matter of fact that you have confessed to being a troll. Reminding others of this is a contribution.

Well said.

But on WP we've just got to remember that every possible human behaviour is associated with Autism (not exactly true in real life but on WP it seems to be). Sometimes I feel that WP makes NTs seem like really boring people.

So yes, I agree with you 100 percent.

Last edited by Joe90 on 13 Oct 2011, 1:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Quacks don't get published in The Lancet, Evolution and Human Behaviour, Proceedings of the NAS and Biological Psychology. Now I grant you that all research is framed by the biases and prejudices of the observer--but that is why scholarly research, in any field, is the subject of peer review.



I am certainly not going to deny your experience. But you are proof of nothing--you are an anecdote.

Note well that I have never said that sexuality cannot change--but we have to be careful that we don't get caught in the trap of behavioural determinism. A person with a relatively immutable sexual orientation may, nonethess, engage in sexual behaviours inconsistent with that orientation (e.g. heterosexuals confined in a same-sex environment, homosexuals who want to conceive a child). Behaviour is not determinative of sexuality.

That's not strictly true--Andrew Wakefield's paper supposedly showing a link between Autism and the MMR vaccine was published in The Lancet after all. I believe the most recent verdict is that it was out-and-out fraud. Of course, The Lancet has basically retroactively rejected the paper.

I stand quite properly corrected.

<-- Homosexual and autistic. Chose neither.

Here's a curious theory for you. The idea that homosexuality is a brain wiring issue is pretty likely - I remember reading an article in New Scientist involving brain scans. Those of homosexual men are more like those of heterosexual women than heterosexual men, and those of homosexual women are more like those of heterosexual men than heterosexual women. Basically, lesbians think like straight men and gay men think like women.

Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that. But this is where it gets interesting.

I'm also aware that far more men are diagnosed autistic than women, and that generally women are less severely affected by autism. So I've often wondered - if my homosexuality means my brain works more like a woman's than a man's, would my autism be worse if I was straight?